Ultra Dance 15 EDM Double-Disc Compilation Out Now

Because making your own mixtape is hard

Ah, the mix album. For as long as there’ve been DJs spinning hours and hours of music, there’ve been compilation records that aim to bring that same vibe to your walkman/boombox/tapedeck. They’re as much of an institution in EDM as light toys and gogo dancers. Ultra Records has the unique position of having the biggest names in the biz under their rather large umbrella, so you can bet their annual mix will be a solid group of tunes.

Armin van Buuren, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Krewella, Diplo…it’s really an all-star gathering of EDM headliners. That’s both a boon and a curse, I think. There’s no new music on this compilation. What it does have are a lot of popular songs that have been collected in a double-disc set. Could you make a similar playlist on Spotify? Probably, but that requires effort, and really, who has thirty minutes to put together 24 tracks?! That’s — literally — what DJs are for.

In all seriousness, this isn’t a bad collection of tracks. If by some miracle you’re unfamiliar with the EDM Scene™ in general, this is a pretty good crash course in what and who’s popular at the moment. Here are some of my favorite cuts: